Flying triggers anxiety in even the most enlightened. Try this in-flight meditation to curb air-rage
SOUL’S CODE — Look no further than 30 Rock, and its politically-ambitious star Alec Baldwin’s pre-Christmas meltdown on an American Airlines flight from New York to LA. The pilot ordered the Hunt for the Red October actor removed from the plane (and let’s not kid ourselves, Alec is an Elite American Advantage club member).
You’d think that having a chair in the air at 30,000 feet with a waitress is in itself a miracle — and might bring one closer to the Divine. Even for over-paid celebrities, who already live in a temporal heaven.
But Baldwin hit a spiritual nail on the head, and pointed out a collective unconscious of fear that has turned post-9/11 flying into a gauntlet of trauma, starting with the indignities of walking the TSA line, bare-foot.
Air-rage has been around long before 9/11. Having 30 cubic centimeters of personal space in an aluminum tube that someone else is driving can do that to the best of us. Don’t even mention the recycled air, pressurized to the equivalent of the altitude of the Andes. It’s like, un-American. Or at the very least, non-ergonomic.
The No. 1 cause of belligerence way up there? Alcohol — not marijuana, cocaine or meth.
Or at least that’s what The San Francisco Chronicle reported in a whistle-blower statement from a stewardess:
“The airlines are providing champagne and hard liquor to passengers before the plane ever leaves the gate,” said Dawn Marie Bader, a flight attendant and chapter president of the Association of Flight Attendants. “They’re drinking before breakfast, before dinner. They’re drinking during dinner, after dinner and during the movie. Passengers are drinking all the time.
It’s a motif repeated in this excellent feature in Salon, The Passenger from Hell, as well as this mind-boggling complaint filed against a first class passenger who defecated in a service cart.
Many people self-medicate with alcohol when they don’t feel good. Alcohol in moderation can help some people relax, but it’s not a panacea. It can act as an accelerant by magnifying emotions and blurring reason. The airlines encourage this at some level. They will never stop serving alcohol, of course. It is likely the most profitable part of the business. It even makes one wonder how much their in-flight sales improve as the rest of the air travel experience worsens.
Columnist Tim Chitwood has a suggestion for beating the Delta Blues:
“Zen” means seeking enlightenment through contemplation instead of faith or written instruction. Faith in schedules, facts and figures won’t help you find inner peace when you’re stuck on a crowded plane.
A Soul’s Code in-flight meditation
You can only do what you can do. Pack carefully, leave with plenty of time and try not to hate the person sitting next to you for their rude, weird and annoying sneezing, whining, scratching, sniffing, smelling, or whatever. When you start to feel hate, try this process:
1. Pay specific attention to how your stomach muscles tighten. You may feel your blood pressure rise, or an urge to bite your finger nails. These are normal responses, but you may experience hate in a very particular physical way that’s unique to you. Imagine what that feels like now.
2. Imagine spending your entire day that way. Visualize clinching your fists and grinding your teeth for hours on end. It’s not a pleasant thought, is it?
3. Now change gears and imagine the tension you feel disappearing as you open yourself up to your ideal lover. Imagine the feeling of letting go and falling into a blissful cloud of love.
4. Try interchanging the feeling of love and the feeling of hate. Toggle between the two like flipping a light switch. Tension, release. Stress, relaxation. Hate, love.
5. Keep flipping the switch. Feel your muscles contract and prepare to fight, then unclench and open to your ideal lover. On. Off. On. Off. Just keep flipping the switch until it breaks.
When the difference between on and off blurs, you are more free to fly.
The whole Soul’s Code community sends good energy to you, and prayers of protection for you and your family on all your travles.